Introduction: Principles, Process and Perspective
In the second half of the Seminar, as the teams create their programs, we'll be focusing on issues of design motivated by topics raised in the fields of Instructional Design and Human-Computer Interaction, as well as the general disciplines of education and psychology. In our brief discussion of the readings by Mandel and Mishra et al, we talked about the difference between a focus on defining principles for the design of educational software, and a focus on the process of design itself. Today, we'll add to these different approaches a third: a focus on the perspective taken in the design of educational software. In recent years, a group of researchers has pursued the idea of designing educational software not just for children but with children, in an effort to gain insight about the (intrinsic) interests and modes of thought of child-users, and thus in order to make more successful programs for children's use.
Because so few of you returned the midterm course evaluation, I want to use the first 20 minutes of class to talk about how we might make the Seminar sessions as productive and relevant to your teamwork as possible. To start the discussion, consider whether you think a literature or set of demonstrations that emphasize principles, process or perspectives would be most useful.
"Cooperative Inquiry: Developing New Technologies for Children with Children," by Allison Druin (1999)
Druin's paper is important because it tries to develop a clear and well-founded methodology for collaborating with children in the creation of educational technologies (rather than just loosely claiming that "working with children is useful:). We'll begin the discussion of the Druin article with a few questions:
Spaces for Change: Gender and Technology Access in Collaborative Software Design," by Ching, Kafai and Marshall (March, 2000)
As you probably know, the issue of computers and gender is a hot educational issue. This is not merely because enrollments in computer science courses are disproportionately male despite numerous (and sundry?) attempts by computer science departments to remedy this, but because the computer provides a variety of occasions for virtual presence, and this "presence" raises interesting questions about how gender is (re)presented.
The paper by Ching, Kafai and Marshall is interesting because of the authors' use of spatial metaphors to discuss possibilities of influencing the way the computer might be used successfully by boys and girls. Like the Druin paper, the emphasis here is on children as designers/producers rather than (just) users. We'll continue with some questions:
For next time: Reread the Mandel chapter (assigned before the break), and for at least one of the Design Principles consider the following: